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ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

Made famous by Msgr. Luigi Giussani in the late twentieth century, this prelude has been brought to life through pianist Marcelo Cesena. Looking beyond the repetitious note of this prelude, one can discover, through the help of Msgr. Giussani and Mr. Cesena, the thirst for happiness that dominates life.

From Msgr. Giussani's reflections:

"At first the suggestive music of the main melody impressed me. But after hearing it ten, twenty, thirty times, once while I was seated in the parlour my father put that record on again. All at once I understood that I had understood nothing of what the “Raindrop” really was. For the real theme of that piece was not the music in the foreground, that immediate melody, so tender and suggestive. It was not the instinctive listening to that piece that brought out its truth: its true meaning was something apparently monotonous, so monotonous as to be just one note that repeats itself continuously, with a few slight variations, from the beginning to the end. But when you notice this note, it as if the rest were to withdraw into the margins, becoming as it were a frame to the picture: the picture itself consists only in this note that becomes a kind of fixation, and the “I,” from the beginning to the end, is as it were struck continuously by this overwhelming feeling. "

It was the same experience that Mr. Cesena felt when after years of playing the piece, he suddenly discovered the "secret" to the piece that brought it alive to Fr. Giussani.

"Every time I would restart playing that prelude, it was a new for me, there was new color, new nuance. What was a tired piece of music came alive again because I discovered the hidden truth of the piece in that one note."

He goes on to say:

"That note gave the unity to the piece. Guissani's interpretation is that the note that was repeating over and over represents our heart and the desire of happiness and meaning in life. But for me it is also the biggest evidence of God's existence. Because the scream I have in my heart for meaning is the biggest evidence of existence of God. So that note for me is not only the screaming for a meaning and happiness, but it is also the representation of the evidence of a presence. Playing that music for me became a prayer, because it became the clearest relationship to the mystery in my life".